


An Exercise in Deep Breathing

by SweetVenom



Series: The Syntax of Things [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lesbian Ryder, Some spoilerish stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 02:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10732641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetVenom/pseuds/SweetVenom
Summary: “Look after Scott? Mom, you know that's hopeless," Sara replied. Mom laughed weakly and shook her head.“No, not Scott. Your Father”.That's even more hopeless, she didn't say.-----Vignettes of Sara Ryder and her family throughout the years.





	An Exercise in Deep Breathing

Sara Ryder took a deep breath.

 _Lungs functioning. Check. Heart beating. Check._ She looked down at her limbs, wiggling her fingers and toes to test feeling in her extremities. _Basic body movement. Check_. The thought of cryogenic stasis had frightened her, even at the moment the pod had closed and sleep took her. Deep breath, deep breath, drift to sleep despite her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Now that she was awake, she felt like she couldn't get enough air in her lungs.

After Dr. T'Perro examined her and informed her that her SAM link was working correctly, she prepared mentally for her first pathfinding mission in a new galaxy. What did Andromeda have in store for her family? _What's left of my family,_ she reminded herself silently. She felt a pang of guilt, as though she were erasing Mom, gradually forgetting her..

She stood to make her way to Scott's cryo pod, but was knocked off her feet, _literally,_  as the gravity was lost in the ark. Chaos, flashing lights, sirens and panic ensued, before gravity was finally restored. Everyone clamored to fix the malfunctioning machinery, and Sara actually felt useful as she was able to quickly repair a sparking panel.

After the commotion died down, Sara was able to catch her breath. She walked back into the cryo bay and heard Dr. Lexi T'Perro call out to her.

“Sara? It's your brother”.

***

When Scott and Sara were 6, Scott broke his leg.

It was stupid. A stupid, careless accident. One that Scott had long forgotten in the blur of his countless other careless injuries, but one that Sara would probably never forget.

Mom and dad had been arguing, again. When they fought, they tried to hide from their children, keep their voices down, shutting the door to their room and shooing Scott and Sara outside. Sara would sometime sit just outside their door and hold her breath, listening and trying to figure out why they were mad at each other. If she knew why, maybe she could fix it. Scott had no interest in fixing Mom and Dad. All he wanted to do was play soldiers. That day, he dragged his sister away from the door where Mom and Dad shut themselves away.

“You be the Turian, and I'll be the N7!” Scott proclaimed when they made their way to the tiny, fenced backyard of their floor level citadel apartment.

“I don't want to be the Turian,” she argued halfheartedly. “You always make me be the Turian. Why can't we play something else?”

“Because your princess games are boring. And Billy says you make a perfect Turian!” Scott began cackling, and Sara cringed as she knew Billy's punchline would be mean, whatever it was. “Because he says you always have a stick in your butt!”

“That's gross!” she protested. She stomped her foot for good measure.

“Just chase me and try to shoot me. Here, catch!” he tossed a gun shaped stick, fallen from the single tree in their small spot of green, at her and grabbed a bigger stick for himself. He laughed and began making explosion sounds and he pretended to shoot her. Sara sighed and played along. Scott hid behind the tree and Sara frowned as she crept toward him. She didnt notice until she had circled the tree that Scott had started to climb, still clinging to his make-believe rifle. “You can't get me up here!” he taunted.

“You are so stupid!” she shouted up at him. “You shouldn't climb to get away from a Turian! I read that Turians are really good climbers because they're tall and have talons!”

“Nerd!” he retorted. She huffed and climbed after him.

He had gotten really high, Sara noticed as she timidly found footing to follow him. That was how Scott was, plunging forward without a thought or a plan, while Sara lagged behind cautiously. He was laughing, and he was really, really high. Sara's heart began racing nervously as she tried to keep up without slipping. “Scott, slow down!”

“Uh, that kinda defeats the purpose of chase,” he stated, and continued up to the next branch. “Hey! Watch this!”

Before Sara could react, Scott _stood,_  and _lept_  to the next branch. He laughed as he clung to the branch, swinging his legs up and over to sit upon it. “That's not safe!” she scolded her brother, but he ignored her and did it again.

Sara's stomach sank as Scott lost his footing and plunged to the ground. As he hit the ground with sickening crunch, it took her a moment to realize the scream that sounded was not his, but her own.

When they heard the scream, Mom and Dad were in the backyard a moment later, Dad quickly rushing to Scott's side to assess the damage. Scott's leg was bent funny, and he wasn't even screaming or panicking or crying. He just looked kind of dazed.

“It's broken, Ellen,” Dad said calmly, far too calmly. Scotts leg was backward, how could dad be so calm? “We've got to get him to the hospital”.

Sara started feeling nauseated. The hospital? Grampa died in the hospital. Was Scott going to die, too? Sara was horrified. This was her fault. She shouldn't have played soldiers, shouldnt have followed him up the tree, should have done something different.

“Sara, sweetie, you need to climb down. Carefully, dont want you getting hurt also”. Mom's voice was gentle, yet commanding. Sara couldn't move. Her stomach felt sick and there was a lump in her throat, and she felt like her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest. “Sara? Sara?”

“Sara, get out of the tree!” Dad shouted in his _work voice_ , the voice he used in uniform, as he typed out something on his omnitool. Mom sighed and looked up at Sara, eyes kind and concerned. That made Sara feel guilty. Scott had started wimpering in pain as Dad gingerly scanned the leg with his omnitool, but mom looked worried for Sara. Shouldn't she be fretting over Scott? Sara's chest felt tight.

“Sara. Sara, breath. In, slowly, out slowly. In, out”. Sara followed her mother's commands and the thudding in her chest lessened. “Go back down the way you climbed”.

“I'll fall,” Sara protested.

“Is that how Scott fell? While slowly climbing down?”

“No,” Sara shook her head, tears starting to fall. “He jumped”.

“Then you'll be fine”.

And she was. Mom stood at the base of the tree, reminding Sara to breathe while she took it on branch at a time. Sara was shaking, and continued to shake during the ride to the hospital. Scott was ok, so why did she feel so panicked? Mom was there, reminding her to take deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

After Scott's leg was set and cast, Mom sat with him for a while. Dad took Sara home, and was silent for the skycar ride. He didn't speak until the car was parked. When he spoke it was after a long pause, as he gathered his words.

“You need to stop this”.

Sara was silent, a little fearful of Dad's tone. Tears welled up but she blinked them away.

“You weren't hurt. Scott was. The screaming, the crying, your mother having to spend fifteen minutes getting you out of the tree. It's unacceptable. Get your emotions under control”.

Dad opened the doors to the car and trudged inside, with little Sara following behind, swallowing the upset bubbling from her chest.

  
***

Sara was careful to cope and conceal her anxieties and fears thereafter, especially around Dad. Deep breathing was key. A few breaths, and she could push away any urge to cry.

With practice, she even felt satisfied and happy with her ability to remain calm and detatched. If dad was proud, he never said so. She kept her composure around mom, too. She knew mom and dad often fought over differing parenting styles; dad was a military man, an _N7,_ and Mom was so gentle and warm. They clashed so often, Sara didn't like being one more thing about which they argued.

When she was 14, she had perfected her unemotional persona. Scott, however, was the _fun twin_. People liked him better (and could she blame them? Scott just had this natural charisma. Sara was boring, and a little standoffish, in comparison). She had few friends, but it didn't matter, because she liked to be alone, mostly. It gave her time and space to reprogram her new omnitool, or to alter the code in her personal terminal, or to just pull apart pieces of tech and make new things out of the components.

So she was caught off guard when she found herself pining after Marianna, who sat next to her in Xenogeography. She was beautiful, and had a warm smile, with rich brown eyes and long twists of black hair laying on her golden brown skin. Marianna never seemed offput by Sara the way others were. Sara had read in history books that centuries ago, it was against the law in many places on earth for women to be together, or people of different skin colors. She thanked science and progress that was no longer true, and sometimes didn't pay attention in class because she was looking at Marianna and wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

Then she cursed her brother for being more charming than she could ever hope to be. He and Marianna kissed behind the school elevator one day. Sara kept her disappointment to herself. No sense in ruining her brother's fun. How could he have known, when he and Sara rarely talked about anything substantial anymore? And besides, Marianna probably didn't like her anyway. She was just a nice person, probably just being polite to Sara.

She sometimes hoped she'd get a girlfriend, but withdrawing to her room to dismantle and improve her haptic interface on her terminal was easier.

***

“Sara, I just don't know if the military is the right choice”.

“Mom, it's the best choice. I interviewed with the head of the dig teams. I'll be side by side with the best, learning program tech hands on. It would take me years to persue and degree in archeology, this way I'll be at a dig site in six months”.

Sara held her coffee in her hands and kept her voice steady. Her mother almost never questioned her choices. Her disapproval stung, but Sara held her neutral expression and took a silent, slow, deep breath.

“I just don't believe that's the reason you're doing this”. Mom folder her arms and titled her head, black strands of hair falling out from behind her ear.

“I'll be fine, Mom. I can handle Basic. It not like I'm gunning for N7 status”.

“You're doing this because of your brother. And your father. Sara, it's ok that you aren't like them. Dad loves you no matter what, he's just not… adept at showing it. You don't need to join the alliance Navy to make him proud”.

“You don't know what your talking about,” Sara said, a little more cold than she meant.

Mom took a deep breath. Sara noticed it seemed a little labored, but thought nothing of it.

 

***

 

“Dad? What's going on? It's the middle of the night here”. Sara rubbed her eyes as she squinted at her omnitool on her tiny nightstand and looked at the holographic interface with her father's face. His worried face. It was the middle of the night at the Mars base where she was stationed, and Dad never called her, not even during the day. Why now?

“Do you have Leave earned up?”

“Wha-? Um yeah, I think, four months, by now?” Sara woke herself up a bit. Something was wrong.

“Put in a Leave request,” he ordered in his N7 voice. _You can kick Alec Ryder out of the Alliance, but you can't kick the Alliance out of Alec Ryder_.

“Why?” She questioned his command. He wasn't her superior. She'd stopped acting like he was a long time ago.

His face faltered. Sara had never seen him like this.

“It's your Mother”.

  
***

“You'll look after him, won't you?”

Mom was looking frail, emaciated, hollow. Not much longer, the doctors had said. A few weeks, at most. True to their shared nature, Scott and Dad were in denial. Dad was still messaging doctors around the galaxy, and Scott would still say things to Sara like _she'll pull through, she's tough, it's not over yet, she seemed like she was improving yesterday._

Sara, ever the pragmatist, took the time to prepare arrangements. Cremation, memorial ceremony, just the way her mother asked. No flowers, Mom hated flowers. She tried to spend the time alone with her, but it was difficult to see her like this.

“Look after Scott? Mom, you know that's hopeless," Sara replied. Mom laughed weakly and shook her head.

“No, not Scott. Your Father”.

 _That's even more hopeless_ , she didn't say.

“He'll need you. Scott will be fine, He'll grieve and move on. But your father won't let go so easily”. Mom squeezed Sara's hand, then pulled away as though to say _It's time to let go now_.

Sara said nothing as she watched her mother take deep, labored breaths.

  
***

Deep breaths again, as she struggled for air. Her helmet was shattered beyond repair. Habitat 7 was going to be her death, her deep breathing would undo her. She closed her eyes and tried to picture a calm earth beach, or a babbling brook, or Mom, or _anything_ to distract her from her spasming lungs.

“Sara!” Dad was at her side in a moment. Her vision hazed at the edges, and her lungs were burning. She didn't know what was happening, and thought that perhaps she'd die in her father's arms. She didn't want to die in his arms. It would be easier to die alone.

_Sam, commence transfer now!_

What was he talking about? Was he even talking? Was she hearing things? Her breathing became less painful and she wondered if her body was shutting down her nervous system to giver her a painless death. Her last thought was of her mother, before everything faded to black.

***

A deep breath, and she was alive. How was that possible? This AI was capable of incredible things. She allowed herself to marvel at the scientific capabilities to distract her from reality.

Mom, Dad, _dead_. Scott, _comatose_. Sara Ryder, **_P_** ** _athfinder_**.

“Pathfinder, I would advise you to moderate your breathing. It has become quick and shallow. Perhaps you should take deep, slow breaths”.

Sam's voice inside the room was cold and artificial. So why did it remind her of Mom?

She wasn't sure. But it was good advice. She'd probably be doing a lot of deep breathing to get her through this.

**Author's Note:**

> I was really trying to write some Vetra/FemRyder, but I really needed to work out Sara's history and how that made her who she was, as I played her primarily logical/professional. This was the result. Will soon be a part of a Vetra/Ryder series.
> 
> I really tried to portray a slightly dysfunctional relationship in the Ryder family, since I found Alec's actions prior to the game and keeping such huge secrets from his children to be really screwed up, even if his intentions were good.
> 
> Also, I may have been dealing with a little real life anxiety when i started writing this, and I find deep breathing is a useful coping tool. That bled into the fic enough to make it the prevailing theme.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr!  
> www.tumblr.com/blog/sweetorangepoptart  
> www.tumblr.com/blog/redheadedbiotic


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